The Tuesday Taste - A&W Mini Burgers

 

 

 

When I come home feelin' tired and beat

I go up where the air

is fresh and sweet (up on the roof) 

I get away from the hustling crowd

and all that rat-race noise

down in the street

 

 

Another Tuesday... another Taste! As the lead photo suggests, four tastes in fact. 

 

If you've been a longtime reader of the TT throughout it's now multiple re-incarnations... yes we are doing A&W yet again. I've probably reviewed A&W more times than I've even eaten McDonald's in the past half-decade. They featured in my Veggie Burger Showdown, my Breakfast Sandwich square-off... I compared their Teen and Mozza burgers at a location that in it's previous pub form was a long time ago summer job of mine... gave thoughts on their old Nashville hot chicken sandwich with fries... hell I even did their limited time "Best Ever Burger" collaboration with Matty Matheson (maybe the sheer fattiest burger I've ever eaten... still good though). At this point, I could probably recite the menu, no?

So yeah! There are a lot of reviews about A&W on this site. And yet, seeing as all of those previous articles are from 2021 or early 2022... another piece about A&W was overdue, right? No! I'm not going to write about something like the Double Great Grandpa Burger just because I've never tried it. Clearly my motivation and ideas towards featuring this fast food chain had exhausted steam quite a long while ago...

...until I realized I'd never actually reviewed the Buddy Burger. Son of a gun.

Writing about just the Buddy Burger would make this my shortest review ever (even shorter than the 'offensively meh' Four Brothers pizza). Hmmmm. Well A&W offer a bunch of other small items on a value menu of sorts... why don't I just review some of those as well? Heck I've already done it with both Wendy's and Jolibee (geez forget The Tuesday Taste... this week should be called "The Tuesday Old Weblinks Dump").

A&W doesn't really offer anything like tiny nachos, chili, mashed potatos or very tasty pineapple-like beverages... and I don't much care about their wraps... so mini-burgers it is! Two of these might be limited time: the double burger called a "Stacker" and the more decorated chicken offering they're calling the "Spicy Piri Piri Chicken Buddy". The other two are the normal Chicken Buddy and the classic beef Buddy Burger avec fromage. 

 

 

This here is your "Stacker" and HO GEEZ THAT IS A BIG HUNK OF LETTUCE. Seeing as I showed up to my local A+Dubs here in the Beaches around 11pm on a Sunday... because it was the end of the day did they just go "screw it, plop the whole thing on there it's easier than throwing it out"?

Whatever it was, no complaints because I love crunchy, watery lettuce like this. A true shocker from any fast food joint, wherein usually you're far more likely to encounter thin faded wisps that exist only for appearances sake. This was... actually... fresh. The fact that it might be more lettuce than burger isn't a problem for me, anyway.

Diving into the other 47 percent of this thing (take away that huge tomato slice too and I think we're down to a 1/3) well, the beef patties are entirely fine. They're thin and not particularly juicy, but you get a somewhat hint of beefy flavour and some greasy griddle on top. Also not overly seasoned with salt (if anything it could use a micro-pinch more) which is my consistent complaint with Eh-and-Dubya's regular sized burgers. 

As I've said before I'm not really a "double burger" guy (a stance earning much disagreement and ridicule) but there are exceptions and this is one. With patties this thin on a burger with so much other stuff (like an entire patch of lettuce) you need to at least double them lest their entire presence be drowned below. 

Quick note on the other unmentioned stuff: pickles and a "new sauce". Fast food pickle slices are fast food pickle slices, always too soft for my liking but at least you can taste these. The "new sauce" is really your standard Thousand Islands Dressing-like sauce that is perfectly serviceable for a burger like this.                     

The other potentially limited time item is this Piri Piri Spicy Chicken Buddy. Well, they eased up on the lettuce a bit this time.

I've always found A&W's chicken entirely fine by major brand fast food standards (superior to many, but not my favourite). I'll get into this more with the regular Chicken Buddy. For now, lets examine what they've added here to this special featured item: lettuce, tomato and a piri piri sauce. 

Come on, the sauce is the only thing at all interesting to discuss. My experience with Piri Piri is extremely limited (think I may have bought a Nando's hot sauce once?) so tasting it here, I'll say it isn't like your typical spicy mayo-like spread you usually find. Kind of a grounded, chili flavour with an odd residual sweetness (lemon, as it turns out) that really took my taste buds a while to describe it. I can see why it so classically pairs with chicken... a spicy sauce that does a few different things alongside a particular meat that isn't exactly known for it's own dominating flavour. 

'Spicy' is in the title, so lets discuss that. At first, a few bites in, I totally shrugged it off and laughed at the "Spicy" label of this thing... but it later snuck in just enough to tingle my tongue and warm the mouth to a slight extent. The spice is there and does build slowly, just far from the point of producing actual flame. Accessible spice, I'd say. 

The biggest problem here is the tomato: the sweetnesses clash. This Piri Piri sauce and tomato slice just aren't complimentary to each other, like two drivers on a thin circular road going opposite directions. I'll dock the sandwich a point on composition, but since you can, ya know, just take the tomato off... it's hardly a big deal.

 

 

While we're on the chicken train, might as well dive into the regular Chicken Buddy burger.

Myself, I've always avoided the Chicken Buddy. I probably tried it once or twice ten years ago when they debuted it, was underwhelmed, and never went back... until now (wuhahaha).

Uh right. Anyhow, I can remember why I never went back. Not because it's horrible, not at all. This is okay breaded chicken. Not much to say as far as herbs or spices go beyond a basic hint of pepper, and it has no crunch whatever, like absolutely none. Poke it, your finger will indent it! And that's the same with either mini chicken sandwich here... so that's not super great. 

What this regular Chicken Buddy needs more than anything though, is something else. Desperately. It's just chicken, pickles, mayo and bun. Fun. That's a basic combination that works brilliance on truly great fried chicken sandwiches, because that chicken is so damn good, crispy, and so precisely marinated and seasoned that you don't need any other frills (maybe coleslaw). 

Here? Look, I get I'm dissecting very cheap fast food items happily intended to appeal towards drunken people stumbling home from the bar (always wondered why all these A&Ws are open late...) so it isn't completely fair to measure this against something like Chica's, or even Dave's Hot Chicken. And yet, reviewing it I have to hold it against some kind of level... and so it's my opinion the Chicken Buddy just doesn't have enough. Frankly, I can't even decide what it needs (coleslaw) to make it more of a something. As is... it's a something to wolf down a couple of and hope it doesn't come back up with the Jager shots.      

Still, flavour-wise there is much, much worse (I shudder even remembering it) and for something so small you can at least taste the chicken when you get an okay bite of it (there aren't many). It is also my opinion that the very worst fried/breaded chicken I've ever had fall in the 'too crunchy' department, not the 'too soft'. Too soft (as long as it's cooked properly, otherwise that's a whole other much worse problem) I can handle somewhat. Too crunchy? You know what I mean with this: overly battered, bulbs of it fried to death in every bite, every bite tasting of old fryer oil and the crunch is like chewing a rock... all acting as an airy gross shell for stringy, tasteless chicken inside. Sweet dreams are not made of these. Lets move on.      

 

 

Finishing with an old longtime friend, a forever affordable and reliable late-night companion... the Buddy Burger. Hmmm... maybe that second description suggests something els--I mean no you get your head out of the gutter!        

The Buddy Burger is kind of a weird one for me. On the positive side... it is rather unique. No other fast food joint offers something like this, in such small form, that is simultaneously simple and distinctive. And there isn't anything complex to it: thin beef patty (the exact same they use for the Stacker), ketchup, basic mayo (barely any), and those dirty fried onions that are truly the key to it all. 

It all works (I could do without the ketchup personally, always forget to ask) so I think the problem is I'm just sick of these. The charm has worn out for me. It is a simple burger and there isn't much to carry it beyond the ketchup and greasy onion taste, and I don't think doubling the patty takes you particularly far away from that. I even added cheese just for this review (in the past I'd rarely do so) and sadly barely noticed it except for a bite or two. Decent cheddar, by fast food standards... but there's just too much bun and ketchup for anything else to have any chance. 

Sorry, old friend. Please don't take it personally when a few months from now I still hit you up post-midnight after a few. Okay, nevermind clearly my head is the one in the gutter.     

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Overall. Look it's A&W, there are a zillion of them everywhere, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is doing commercials for them, and I've personally reviewed them a half-dozen times now. See you again when they dabble with a fish sandwich or a pulled pork thing! But in seriousness, there's no point in me recommending them or not... unlike perhaps some of the smaller places I've been writing about recently, you definitely know what A&W is about.

Since it has been a couple years though... after reviewing them again my belief holds that A&W is a clear notch above your other major burger chains we have in Ontario. Their burgers are of overall similar quality to Wendy's but trounce them via creative specials, meanwhile with McDonald's or Burger King it's not even remotely close. I'd barely classify those as real food. 

I suppose Harvey's on a very good day makes it very, very interesting... but a dry meh Harvey's burger (and I've had a few) makes it a tough matchup. You can only taste "grill" for so long. At their absolute best? Probably lean Harvey's. One thing I appreciate about both: you never get that "I just ate a pretty heavy fatty meal and yet am still hungry" feeling afterwards. You simply feel... full. How novel.        

Anyhow, I tried four things. Lets rank them, bottom to best:

 

4. Chicken Buddy - Decent-ish chicken desperately seeking help. Too hollow even when drunk.

3. Buddy Burger - It is what it is. Does hit a guilty spot when drunk though.

2. Piri Piri Chicken Buddy - Shows what a more enhanced Chicken Buddy could do. Quite alright.

1. Stacker (Double) - The thin beef pattys still disappear(ing) in the fade but composition-wise a very solid, okay tasty burger. Needs more lettuce though. 

 

Final final conclusion: A&W use the exact same buns for all of these mini burger things and while all were soft and fresh enough (unlike *cough* McDonald's *cough* Subway *cough*)... after eating these four bread heavy sandwiches with that exact same texture, that very neutral bun flavour, all in the span of six hours... I'm not having any of these again for quite a while...   

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Funky Jobs On The Run

I've worked a lot of various jobs in my adult life, the vast majority of them in bars/restaurants, and as such some of the extremely brief ones do stand out in my memory for something comedic and/or bizarre. Enjoy this new semi-short feature on the TT. 

 

Lady Marmalade

Yep, the very same one you're thinking of. Queen of the Busy Brunch Restaurant (on Broadview now but formerly on Queen East). This was February 2020: COVID-19 was still but a mere vague notion in the middle-to-back end of the news cycle, the weather had been semi-decent, and I was nearly broke. I saw a posting for a dishwasher and so applied to Lady Marmalade, thinking this could tide me over for a while until something more in my wheelhouse came along. 

They brought me in for a trial shift at 7am(bah! gross!) on a Tuesday, showed me around the kitchen and put me to work. It's awful boring and repetitive work, but I was focused and for a few hours felt I was doing steady. Of course, being as absurdly busy as they are pretty much everyday of the week, they have an enormous prep kitchen in the basement... which also goes through tons of dishes that have to be washed with near similar priority.

See, among my many many jobs... dishwasher has never been one of them. At least, not for long. Once lunchtime hits and everything starts piling up significantly more, the sous chef calls down to one of the prep guys to come up and give me a hand. The prep dude arrives, runs through all the piles of built up dirty dishes and pots in like fifteen minutes without breaking a sweat... meanwhile I'm standing awkwardly and uselessly nearby in the back of this kitchen, unsure if I'm more shocked at discovering I'm so terrible or more impressed at this fella being so good, all while not really able to help or do anything. 

Immediately after everything is cleared, the general manager tells me they have another trial shift arriving soon, hands me a written cheque for the four-ish hours I worked and says "we'll let you know ". Can't remember if she ever actually did, but she obviously didn't have to. This was like the Tanzanian Devil having to take over for Droopy (I'll mix my cartoon similes how I please, damnit!).

Hey, at least they paid me... 

 

 

A Trip Along Dundas Street

I'm rather obsessed with maps, city maps especially, and I absolutely love this kind of stuff. This fella goes along most of Dundas Street here in Toronto (notorious for it's twists and confounding general path) and explains or theorizes why, using old maps, how modern Dundas looks the way it does. He isn't the most charismatic presenter, even if this world weren't comparatively the YouTube/TikTok Age (think dry university lecturer) but he knows his stuff and is genuinely informative.          

          

 

Tuesday Tune

Just one of those songs where it's near impossible to be in a bad mood when you hear it.  

That's all for another week! What will be next? Will it be tasty? Who knows! I sure don't! Until then, stay safe out there, stay dry, and most of all don't spill that mustard.

This Week In Pizza: Four Brothers

 

 

 

I'm a man on a mission: this will be my shortest pizza review ever. Yes, I have a tendency as a writer (and person) to babble on (I just like telling stories damnit) but on this rare occasion there is little story to share. Four paragraphs at most, and we're counting this brief opening one.

Four Brothers is a pizza mini chain with other locations further west (Mississauga and Oakville) that have set up shop near King and Spadina here in Toronto. The decor is... odd: lots of open space, big open windows in the front (not exactly ideal when you're watching construction-loaded King West and your entrance-way is just a giant parking lot set back significantly from the street), and many old-timey looking chairs and sofas that are splattered with paint, Pollock style. 

 

 

Does this look familiar? It sure does taste familiar. My critique of the pizza is: this is like any mediocre slice you've ever had in your life. Like, down to every detail. You don't need to try these guys, trust me you've already had it. Painfully forgettable. Generous with the toppings, I'll give them that... and it is on the larger side of slices. But flavour? There's just nothing here. Nothing lingers, nothing is interesting or even slightly memorable. No freshness or buttery texture with the crust... the cheese is typical "cheap cheese on a cheap slice", the ham strips are desiccated, the tomato sauce (which is barely there, so an offense to my particular tastes) is your bland generic fare lacking any punch, and you've got the cardinal sin of a bacon crumble on here. I have a soft spot for bacon crumble, not gonna lie... but it never ever appears at any pizza joint with any ounce of decent quality. How about an aftertaste? Do you like air? Because this one fades in milliseconds.

 

Overall. This is meh pizza 101, a beginners course that a washout is struggling to pass. What a letdown. They offer something called "pizza skulls" which are baked dough items shaped like skulls filled with pizza toppings. Trying to imagine such a thing is way, way more interesting than this lame-ass slice. Did I mention it was seven bucks? Really? It's King West and I'm sure they get a lot of drunken late night business... but I showed up in the late afternoon relatively sober (relatively) and this was the best they had to offer. You know it's bad when I, Crazy Pizza Man, only finish half of it, put it away and then forget it's even there when I'm hungry later. Seven bucks? Get lost. The pizza itself isn't offensive but it's just so insultingly forgettable and pathetic that I strongly suggest you stay far, far away. "D++". It's barely better than the true offenders like Pizza Pizza, and only barely. At least 2-4-1 is far cheaper, and the quality is an even match. I didn't go into this planning such a brief review, but taste-wise there's nothing else to say! Unbelievably lame pie. 

       

The Tuesday Taste - Porchetta & Co

 

 

But we did nothing

absolutely nothing, that day

and I'll say

What the hell am I

doing drinking in L.A

at twenty-six

I got the fever for the flavour

the payback will be later

but I need a fix 

 

Another Tuesday... another Taste! We've been reviewing fairly new attractions in the recent editions of the TT... so lets review an older sensation on the Toronto food scene.

 

Porchetta & Co has existed long enough to persist through multiple locations. Their old, old spot on Dundas West is the one I recall best when first hearing of and trying them over a decade ago (and it made an excellent "sneak a sandwich into a Jays game" snack) but they've been comfortably located on King West between Spadina and Bathurst for quite some time now. Back in the late 2017-2019s I two-timed double shifts working the Firkin at Queen/John in the mornings and then off to bartend at Roy Thomson Hall in the evening... so with a couple hours as a gap between on many occasions I went to the King West Porchetta & Co for a deliciously sloppy fried chicken sandwich. It always did the trick. 

They've also found an additional home in section 120/Gate 1 at the ACC-I-mean-Scotiabank Arena here in Toronto, another place I work and do so currently please know it was a joke post-scanning-bots! I was working the Nicki Minaj concert last week, noticed Porchetta had an outpost in the arena, realized I hadn't sampled them in well over half a decade, and thus the idea was born!

Was a good sandwich born from this flighty idea though? It's a tricky one. Fortunately, I did not visit the Porchetta & Co location at my work that even with my 1/3 discount would've still been bankrupting (please don't read this, bots! I'm a wicked good though obviously sarcastic worker. Go Leafs). Actually, to the credit of Scotiabank Arena they actually have hidden little spots that feature local food and drink. Cherry Street BBQ has an outpost on the third floor near 308 (right by the main elevator) and there's a bar in the 100s I've worked a few times that features an excellent Italian pilsner by the excellent Henderson's Brewery.

 

     

No, for this review I went back to my old messy fried chicken stomping ground. On the topic of 'messy'... can I mention how much King Street West sucks? At least the portion between Spadina and Bathurst... and look I know I'm an east end guy and downtown Toronto has become an anxiety nightmare clusterfuck of condos and endless construction... but geez this was impressively clustery. Totally a word and if it isn't, patent pending. It was a gorgeous day, Porchetta has a delightful front porch with comfy benches... except within a second of biting into my sandwich a sewage sucking vehicle pulled up six feet away to do, you know, what they obviously do. And they did not do it quietly or without significantly unpleasant scent. Combine this with the half-dozen enormous trucks spewing dust in your eyes within a block... yeah King West sucks. At least between Spadina and Bathurst it sure does.

None of this is the fault of Porchetta & Co, obviously... and now that my feelings of "I like going downtown about as much as I like a pinecone up my unspeakables" have been reaffirmed, lets move onto this sandwich itself... and most importantly lets move far beyond that image I just put in your minds (sorry).

 

 

Photo taken immediately before the stench of sewage yellowed the air! So I will say: it's a good sized sandwich. The experience of eating it is somewhat hollow... the best bites are when you get the combined fatty and thicker tender cuts of the pork... but it's about every fourth bite you get nothing but bun and various sauce.

Please don't mistake my snark for negatively. This is indeed an excellent sandwich, but it is also extremely inconsistent. Certain bites are truly sublime... the perfect balance of tender, decadent fattiness, sweet and rich sauce, and a bit of crunch. Other bites, as just mentioned, are very empty. When all you get is dry crackling and kaiser bun you have to chew on for a minute... not really fun. Averaging it out... it's very good.

 

 

Diving into the specific construction of the sandwich (briefly). The sauce combination is absolutely brilliant: seedy mustard and a truffle aioli. I'm not normally a seed mustard fan (normally too bitter and I'm a heavy honey mustard or dijon fella all day) but this particular spread really brought a unique sweetness I wasn't expecting... which when mixed with the rich truffle hint (faint but definitely there) in the aioli really was quite dynamic.

A kaiser bun is always a kaiser bun. How about the pork? How about... very good! It's very no frills... not overtly seasoned, no marinating sauce or anything... simply a very fatty and roasted taste to it. There's a wonderful juiciness that, when you get a good chunk, only perfectly roasted and prepared pork can provide... absolutely pristine.

Porchetta & Co definitely succeeds in making you want more of their porchetta... alas this is a review and I'm gonna call that success both a significantly good and a significantly bad thing.

 

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Overall! Yeah... if you can somehow avoid the perpetual construction dusty traffic smelly nightmare that is King West... Porchetta & Co is legitimately good! I do recommend trying them, but with an asterisk: I'm a tough critic and I was hoping for something here that would blow me away... it did not. They're good! But not 'great'. A generally enjoyable fatty pork sandwich but it is really missing one or two things to really elevate it into excellence. Very roasty, great sauces and juiciness in the fatty bites make it worthwhile... extremely well constructed... but just too many bites of nothingness that bring it down. 

Every third bite is an "oh... that wasn't a fun anything" and while batting .667 in baseball would make you unbelievable, in food consistency is even more crucial. Those 2/3 good parts though? Incredible. It's a 1/2 two thumbs up (apparently this is the fraction hour now)... which is technically one thumb up? Whatever lets get out of here. 

 

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Tuesday Tune    

 

Beyond an obvious nostalgia trip of "nine year old me watching music videos on MuchMusic" when that was actually a thing... well 27 years later this song still rules. A rare band that is probably a two-hit wonder: their later collaboration with the incomparable Curtis Mayfield is a likewise wonderful song that got some brief traction. But this is the song they'll be remembered forever for, and it's a damn good catchy one.

 

  

That's all for this week! Plenty of other mini-chain places in Toronto I gotta check out, and Tuesdays are just the time and place to make it happen. Until next time... stay safe, watch out for the Killer Cars... and most of all don't spill that mustard.